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Executive Search Review

Past Articles From The Archives

Recruiting Firms Leverage Technology To Fuel Growth

In the midst of a rapidly evolving economy, industry analysis from Staffing Industry Analysts, a global advisor on staffing and workforce solutions, says the recruiting industry grew more than 11 percent in 2022, and many firms made the most of the opportunities in front of them. What did the top performers do differently to beat

As Investors Retreat, Healthcare/Life Sciences Sector Stays Resilient

Healthcare and life science organizations are facing an increasingly complex landscape, with rapid technological advancements, changing regulatory environments, and heightened public scrutiny. As a result, these companies have been turning to executive search firms more than ever to acquire world-class leadership. The most pressing challenge has been finding high-impact, innovative leaders who can navigate this

Spotlight: Recruiting Top Talent for Life Sciences Organizations

Rusty Rueff is the co-founder and board director of Alioth, a national technology-enabled executive search firm for life sciences companies of all stages. He is a corporate board director and co-founder of numerous past and present companies, most notable being on the founding boards of Glassdoor (acquired 2018) and HireVue (acquired 2019). Mr. Rueff was

Healthcare Trends That Will Shape 2023

In more than 300 conversations with industry board members, CEOs, and C-suite leaders, Spencer Stuart recently explored many key trends playing out in healthcare this year — all with clear implications for leadership, especially at senior levels. The firm looks at the major themes from the week and how they will impact leadership, talent, and

Life Sciences: The Power of Supply-Chain Leadership in Today’s Market

Evolving regulatory environments, shifting customer demands, market disruptors, and pricing challenges are changing the life sciences industry. In this new era, where value creation is no longer only about the products, life sciences companies are placing an increased emphasis on building a strong supply chain via both infrastructure and talent, according to executive recruiters. “For

Shaping Company Culture from the Top Down and Bottom Up

Culture is hardly a new concept. Well before the rise of various models and frameworks to evaluate organizational culture, companies recognized the risk of hiring a cultural mismatch — such as the lone wolf in a company who doesn’t value collaboration. New employees, especially leaders, who clash with an existing culture are often ineffective, and

Spotlight: The Benefits of a Strong Company Culture

Deb Taft is CEO of Lindauer. She has over 25 years of executive and senior-level experience across the non-profit sector, from education to healthcare/academic medicine to the youth service and voluntary sectors. Her expertise includes governance, strategic planning, fundraising, program and staff management, strategic marketing, analytics, and constituent engagement, as well as talent recruitment, retention,

Spotlight: Driving Cultural Transformation

Carolyn Taylor is chair of Walking the Talk, a consulting and advisory firm focused on culture transformation. The company specializes in enhancing performance results by aligning culture with strategy. Since the company was established 11 years ago, culture has landed firmly on the agenda of most executive teams and boards of directors. As pioneers in

Managing Corporate Culture Now Means Managing Great Expectations

How work is organized within companies and how employees view their jobs and their relationships to companies is changing. COVID-19 combined with trends that were already taking shape have had a significant impact on employment, recruitment, and retention. “Employees expect their organizations to share their personal values and sense of social responsibility for the community

Growing Canadian Search Market Continues to Help Reshape Business

The executive search industry in Canada is a highly competitive and rapidly evolving sector that has experienced significant changes in recent years. With the Canadian job market becoming increasingly competitive, companies are relying more heavily on executive search firms to find top talent for their most senior positions. As a result, executive search firms have

Spotlight: Veteran Recruiter Shares View of Canadian Market

Toronto-based Rosenzweig & Company is an executive search firm focused on the critical, often specialized recruiting needs of its clients. The firm also offers management assessment, onboarding and executive coaching, organizational effectiveness, digital media strategy, and risk advisory and compliance services to a growing international client base. Jay Rosenzweig, the founding partner of the firm,

Spotlight: An Inside Look at One Canadian Boutique Firm’s Approach to Today’s Market

Winnipeg-headquartered executive search firm Waterford Global specializes in recruiting mid-to-senior professional and executive level talent domestically and internationally. Since its founding in 2006, the firm has found and placed candidates in business sectors including: healthcare, construction, financial and professional services, agribusiness, retail, communications, energy, manufacturing and real-estate. With more than 25 years of experience in

How to Choose Your Executive Search Partner

The hard truth about talent, especially leadership talent, is that if you’ve got the wrong talent in place, it can quickly become your company’s Achilles heel. Alternatively, great leadership can serve as a business multiplier, and retaining top talent ranks as the top priority for CEOs and other C-suite executives globally. Quite simply, securing the

European Executive Search Market: Dynamic & Increasingly Unpredictable

The way work is delivered continues to change; so does the negotiating relationship between organizations and candidates, particularly executives, according to a new report from Global Executive Search’s Portugal partner Pedro Branco. Organizations are being asked to find the best solutions to secure the best talent to achieve their objectives, the study said. Europe —

Spotlight: Executive Recruiting In Europe: Uncertainty and Resilience

Raffaele Jacovelli is managing director at digital-focused executive search firm Hightech Partners. The firm leverages forward-looking methods such as big data analysis and artificial intelligence into the executive search process to help companies embrace new ways of working. Hightech Partners has offices in Brussels and Geneva, Switzerland with local partners across the major regions of

Spotlight: How One Search Firm is Adjusting to the European Market

As managing director and CEO of the group Rialto Recruitment NV, Patrick Van Lijsebetten is responsible for three brands: Proman (interim), Rialto Recruitment (executive search), and Ombrelo (recruitment and selection). After a career of more than 20 years as an engineer in the B2B industry, he founded Atlantae Executive Search in 2001, a specialized headhunting

ZRG Partners Opens Office in Munich

ZRG Partners recently opened a new office in Munich and named Ralph von Pallandt as managing director to spearhead a new location. He also furthers the firm’s reach into Germany and Europe. “With his great success as a CHRO across multiple countries for General Motors and SVP for Allianz in Europe and the U.S., Ralph

Meeting the Challenge of Deglobalization

Beyond the health crisis it created, COVID-19 in many ways changed the world. In business and our work lives, the pandemic sparked and accelerated shifts that had already been stirring, driving them to the forefront, from the rise of technology and remote work to a greater emphasis on work-life balance. Concern about supply chains, meanwhile,

Amrop Opens New Office in Vienna

Global recruiting organization Amrop has added Gabriele Gradnitzer and Sandra Schrögenauer to represent the Amrop brand and business in Austria. The executive search and leadership veterans will operate the new company under the global Amrop brand, with offices located at Karlsplatz in Vienna’s 1st district. They are joined by a team of six consultants and

Heightened Demand for Cybersecurity Leaders Keeps Executive Recruiters Busy

Increasingly, organizations of all sizes are awakening to the perils posed by cyberattacks. For years, many groups tried to ignore the problem, dismissing cybersecurity as a concern only for the biggest, most high-profile entities, be they government or corporate. These days, more groups are coming to understand how ruinous such intrusions could be and cyberattacks

Spotlight: A Look Inside the Competitive Market for Cyber Experts

A pioneer in the development of the cybersecurity recruiting industry, Matt Comyns co-founded Artico Search with Mercedes Chatfield-Taylor to lead the team helping companies protect against cyberwarfare. He built the original cybersecurity search practices at two global firms – Russell Reynolds Associates and Caldwell – filling more than 300 executive level searches in a hyper-competitive

Spotlight: A Look Through the Eyes of an Executive Recruiter at the Cybersecurity Sector

As a partner at SPMB, Radley Meyers works with a variety of leading technology and tech-enabled-services companies, placing senior-level executives at venture capital-funded, private equity-backed, and publicly traded companies. A key area that he brings extensive knowledge and expertise to is SPMB’s security and data-related search work. Mr. Meyers leads both functional searches (CISO, CDO,

Expanding the Role of CISOs on Boards

Not since 2002 and the passing of the massively consequential Sarbanes-Oxley Act, when the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) required America’s boards of directors to appoint chief financial officers and form audit committees, has there been such a critical impending change to board skill-sets and reporting. The SEC has once again identified a serious gap

Slone Partners Launches Cybersecurity Practice

Life sciences-focused search firm Slone Partners has launched Slone Partners Cybersecurity, a national talent recruitment firm that delivers diverse commercial, operational, and technical cybersecurity specialists and leaders for companies in all business verticals and health systems. The firm is a successor to Wolf Hill Group, which was founded as a joint venture with Slone Partners

The Burgeoning Demand for Cybersecurity Talent

The impact of a cybersecurity breach – be it from cyber criminals, business competitors, terrorist organizations, or foreign nations – is unsettling to say the least. In terms of dollars alone, the average data breach cost $4.35 million in 2022, an increase of 2.6 percent over last year and 12.7 percent since 2020, according to

Will Hot M&A Recruiting Market Cool and Reset Valuations?

Acquisitions made big news in the recruiting industry this year, and for good reason. Outside investors finally caught on to the sector’s expansion potential and long growth runway ahead. Top search leaders also found ways to maximize profit (cutting back on office space helped every search firm achieve a better bottom line in 2022). That

Spotlight: What is Fueling the Surging M&A Sector?

Ghada Sousou, CEO of Sousou Partners. She conducts senior management recruiting assignments for clients globally and is responsible for managing and building Sousou Partners’ clients, who consist of general partners and limited partners, among the largest and most successful real estate, hospitality, and infrastructure investors globally. Ms. Sousou is also responsible for the firm’s board

Spotlight: Looking Ahead: Will M&A Activity Remain Hot?

Prais+Barnette works proactively with diverse executives, leaders, and influencers who are passionate about increasing workplace diversity to help the firm build broad referral networks across functions and industries. Top diverse prospects can be introduced to key company leaders for networking 30 to 60 days in advance of an opportunity posting. David Barnette is managing partner

NFP Acquires Juno Search Partners

It’s not only private equity firms and search firms acquiring rivals. Now billion dollar consulting firms and insurance brokerages want in on the action. Hunt Scanlon Ventures goes inside the latest deal. Philadelphia-based executive search firm Juno Search Partners LLC, has been acquired by NFP, a property and casualty broker, benefits consultant, wealth manager, and

HireQuest Acquires MRINetwork’s 252 Franchise Offices

HireQuest Inc., a NASDAQ-traded national franchisor of on-demand, temporary and commercial staffing services, has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire certain assets of MRINetwork, a global executive recruiting network headquartered in Delray Beach, FL, for approximately $13.5 million before working capital adjustments. The assets include MRI’s 232 franchise offices in the U.S. and internationally,

Executive Recruiters Upping Their Efforts to Help Organizations Achieve Diversity Goals

Anyone who works in executive search right now has seen, and will continue to see, a push for more lists of diverse candidates for open roles. “We are also seeing organizations start to mandate diversity numbers as a benchmark for DEI success, and seeing an influx of diverse candidates at the executive level as a

Spotlight: Presenting a Diverse Slate of Candidates

Blue Rock Search is a 100 percent minority/female-owned executive search firm. As a member of the SRA Network, the firm is also a Hunt Scanlon HR/Diversity Recruiting Power 65 recruiter. After a 25-year career in corporate human resources and HR executive search, Ruben Moreno and his two partners co-founded Blue Rock Search based on a

Spotlight: The Importance of Having a Diverse Workforce

Founded in 1998 by Tom and Paula Christopher (former HR executives with GE, Pepsi, Progressive Insurance, and Citigroup), The Christopher Group is a leading boutique HR executive search and staffing solutions firms. The firm is staffed by former HR professionals and trained search practitioners who use proprietary, scientific, and industry-leading systems, tools, and processes. The

The Importance of Diversity and Inclusion In the Workplace

Having a culture that supports DEI programs is integral to successful teams and better business performance, says a new report from Hanold Associates HR & Diversity Executive. We sat down with Val Lopez and Pamela Culpepper, who are key leaders in the firm’s DEI efforts, to discuss diversity and inclusion. Here is an excerpt. Diversity

Seeking Gender and Racial Equity

The past two years have seen significant progress in raising awareness and opening a national dialogue around racism and diversity, equity, and inclusion. In a recent study, executive recruitment firm Jensen Partners sought to better understand where DEI stands within the search industry, tracking 207 black front office distribution professional hires from Jan. 1, 2019

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Executive Search Review

Recruiting Firms Leverage Technology To Fuel Growth

In the midst of a rapidly evolving economy, industry analysis from Staffing Industry Analysts, a global advisor on staffing and workforce solutions, says the recruiting industry grew more than 11 percent in 2022, and many firms made the most of the opportunities in front of them. What did the top performers do differently to beat

As Investors Retreat, Healthcare/Life Sciences Sector Stays Resilient

Healthcare and life science organizations are facing an increasingly complex landscape, with rapid technological advancements, changing regulatory environments, and heightened public scrutiny. As a result, these companies have been turning to executive search firms more than ever to acquire world-class leadership. The most pressing challenge has been finding high-impact, innovative leaders who can navigate this

Spotlight: Recruiting Top Talent for Life Sciences Organizations

Rusty Rueff is the co-founder and board director of Alioth, a national technology-enabled executive search firm for life sciences companies of all stages. He is a corporate board director and co-founder of numerous past and present companies, most notable being on the founding boards of Glassdoor (acquired 2018) and HireVue (acquired 2019). Mr. Rueff was

Healthcare Trends That Will Shape 2023

In more than 300 conversations with industry board members, CEOs, and C-suite leaders, Spencer Stuart recently explored many key trends playing out in healthcare this year — all with clear implications for leadership, especially at senior levels. The firm looks at the major themes from the week and how they will impact leadership, talent, and

Life Sciences: The Power of Supply-Chain Leadership in Today’s Market

Evolving regulatory environments, shifting customer demands, market disruptors, and pricing challenges are changing the life sciences industry. In this new era, where value creation is no longer only about the products, life sciences companies are placing an increased emphasis on building a strong supply chain via both infrastructure and talent, according to executive recruiters. “For

Shaping Company Culture from the Top Down and Bottom Up

Culture is hardly a new concept. Well before the rise of various models and frameworks to evaluate organizational culture, companies recognized the risk of hiring a cultural mismatch — such as the lone wolf in a company who doesn’t value collaboration. New employees, especially leaders, who clash with an existing culture are often ineffective, and

Spotlight: The Benefits of a Strong Company Culture

Deb Taft is CEO of Lindauer. She has over 25 years of executive and senior-level experience across the non-profit sector, from education to healthcare/academic medicine to the youth service and voluntary sectors. Her expertise includes governance, strategic planning, fundraising, program and staff management, strategic marketing, analytics, and constituent engagement, as well as talent recruitment, retention,

Spotlight: Driving Cultural Transformation

Carolyn Taylor is chair of Walking the Talk, a consulting and advisory firm focused on culture transformation. The company specializes in enhancing performance results by aligning culture with strategy. Since the company was established 11 years ago, culture has landed firmly on the agenda of most executive teams and boards of directors. As pioneers in

Managing Corporate Culture Now Means Managing Great Expectations

How work is organized within companies and how employees view their jobs and their relationships to companies is changing. COVID-19 combined with trends that were already taking shape have had a significant impact on employment, recruitment, and retention. “Employees expect their organizations to share their personal values and sense of social responsibility for the community

Growing Canadian Search Market Continues to Help Reshape Business

The executive search industry in Canada is a highly competitive and rapidly evolving sector that has experienced significant changes in recent years. With the Canadian job market becoming increasingly competitive, companies are relying more heavily on executive search firms to find top talent for their most senior positions. As a result, executive search firms have

Spotlight: Veteran Recruiter Shares View of Canadian Market

Toronto-based Rosenzweig & Company is an executive search firm focused on the critical, often specialized recruiting needs of its clients. The firm also offers management assessment, onboarding and executive coaching, organizational effectiveness, digital media strategy, and risk advisory and compliance services to a growing international client base. Jay Rosenzweig, the founding partner of the firm,

Spotlight: An Inside Look at One Canadian Boutique Firm’s Approach to Today’s Market

Winnipeg-headquartered executive search firm Waterford Global specializes in recruiting mid-to-senior professional and executive level talent domestically and internationally. Since its founding in 2006, the firm has found and placed candidates in business sectors including: healthcare, construction, financial and professional services, agribusiness, retail, communications, energy, manufacturing and real-estate. With more than 25 years of experience in

How to Choose Your Executive Search Partner

The hard truth about talent, especially leadership talent, is that if you’ve got the wrong talent in place, it can quickly become your company’s Achilles heel. Alternatively, great leadership can serve as a business multiplier, and retaining top talent ranks as the top priority for CEOs and other C-suite executives globally. Quite simply, securing the

European Executive Search Market: Dynamic & Increasingly Unpredictable

The way work is delivered continues to change; so does the negotiating relationship between organizations and candidates, particularly executives, according to a new report from Global Executive Search’s Portugal partner Pedro Branco. Organizations are being asked to find the best solutions to secure the best talent to achieve their objectives, the study said. Europe —

Spotlight: Executive Recruiting In Europe: Uncertainty and Resilience

Raffaele Jacovelli is managing director at digital-focused executive search firm Hightech Partners. The firm leverages forward-looking methods such as big data analysis and artificial intelligence into the executive search process to help companies embrace new ways of working. Hightech Partners has offices in Brussels and Geneva, Switzerland with local partners across the major regions of

Spotlight: How One Search Firm is Adjusting to the European Market

As managing director and CEO of the group Rialto Recruitment NV, Patrick Van Lijsebetten is responsible for three brands: Proman (interim), Rialto Recruitment (executive search), and Ombrelo (recruitment and selection). After a career of more than 20 years as an engineer in the B2B industry, he founded Atlantae Executive Search in 2001, a specialized headhunting

ZRG Partners Opens Office in Munich

ZRG Partners recently opened a new office in Munich and named Ralph von Pallandt as managing director to spearhead a new location. He also furthers the firm’s reach into Germany and Europe. “With his great success as a CHRO across multiple countries for General Motors and SVP for Allianz in Europe and the U.S., Ralph

Meeting the Challenge of Deglobalization

Beyond the health crisis it created, COVID-19 in many ways changed the world. In business and our work lives, the pandemic sparked and accelerated shifts that had already been stirring, driving them to the forefront, from the rise of technology and remote work to a greater emphasis on work-life balance. Concern about supply chains, meanwhile,

Amrop Opens New Office in Vienna

Global recruiting organization Amrop has added Gabriele Gradnitzer and Sandra Schrögenauer to represent the Amrop brand and business in Austria. The executive search and leadership veterans will operate the new company under the global Amrop brand, with offices located at Karlsplatz in Vienna’s 1st district. They are joined by a team of six consultants and

Heightened Demand for Cybersecurity Leaders Keeps Executive Recruiters Busy

Increasingly, organizations of all sizes are awakening to the perils posed by cyberattacks. For years, many groups tried to ignore the problem, dismissing cybersecurity as a concern only for the biggest, most high-profile entities, be they government or corporate. These days, more groups are coming to understand how ruinous such intrusions could be and cyberattacks

Spotlight: A Look Inside the Competitive Market for Cyber Experts

A pioneer in the development of the cybersecurity recruiting industry, Matt Comyns co-founded Artico Search with Mercedes Chatfield-Taylor to lead the team helping companies protect against cyberwarfare. He built the original cybersecurity search practices at two global firms – Russell Reynolds Associates and Caldwell – filling more than 300 executive level searches in a hyper-competitive

Spotlight: A Look Through the Eyes of an Executive Recruiter at the Cybersecurity Sector

As a partner at SPMB, Radley Meyers works with a variety of leading technology and tech-enabled-services companies, placing senior-level executives at venture capital-funded, private equity-backed, and publicly traded companies. A key area that he brings extensive knowledge and expertise to is SPMB’s security and data-related search work. Mr. Meyers leads both functional searches (CISO, CDO,

Expanding the Role of CISOs on Boards

Not since 2002 and the passing of the massively consequential Sarbanes-Oxley Act, when the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) required America’s boards of directors to appoint chief financial officers and form audit committees, has there been such a critical impending change to board skill-sets and reporting. The SEC has once again identified a serious gap

Slone Partners Launches Cybersecurity Practice

Life sciences-focused search firm Slone Partners has launched Slone Partners Cybersecurity, a national talent recruitment firm that delivers diverse commercial, operational, and technical cybersecurity specialists and leaders for companies in all business verticals and health systems. The firm is a successor to Wolf Hill Group, which was founded as a joint venture with Slone Partners

The Burgeoning Demand for Cybersecurity Talent

The impact of a cybersecurity breach – be it from cyber criminals, business competitors, terrorist organizations, or foreign nations – is unsettling to say the least. In terms of dollars alone, the average data breach cost $4.35 million in 2022, an increase of 2.6 percent over last year and 12.7 percent since 2020, according to

Will Hot M&A Recruiting Market Cool and Reset Valuations?

Acquisitions made big news in the recruiting industry this year, and for good reason. Outside investors finally caught on to the sector’s expansion potential and long growth runway ahead. Top search leaders also found ways to maximize profit (cutting back on office space helped every search firm achieve a better bottom line in 2022). That

Spotlight: What is Fueling the Surging M&A Sector?

Ghada Sousou, CEO of Sousou Partners. She conducts senior management recruiting assignments for clients globally and is responsible for managing and building Sousou Partners’ clients, who consist of general partners and limited partners, among the largest and most successful real estate, hospitality, and infrastructure investors globally. Ms. Sousou is also responsible for the firm’s board

Spotlight: Looking Ahead: Will M&A Activity Remain Hot?

Prais+Barnette works proactively with diverse executives, leaders, and influencers who are passionate about increasing workplace diversity to help the firm build broad referral networks across functions and industries. Top diverse prospects can be introduced to key company leaders for networking 30 to 60 days in advance of an opportunity posting. David Barnette is managing partner

NFP Acquires Juno Search Partners

It’s not only private equity firms and search firms acquiring rivals. Now billion dollar consulting firms and insurance brokerages want in on the action. Hunt Scanlon Ventures goes inside the latest deal. Philadelphia-based executive search firm Juno Search Partners LLC, has been acquired by NFP, a property and casualty broker, benefits consultant, wealth manager, and

HireQuest Acquires MRINetwork’s 252 Franchise Offices

HireQuest Inc., a NASDAQ-traded national franchisor of on-demand, temporary and commercial staffing services, has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire certain assets of MRINetwork, a global executive recruiting network headquartered in Delray Beach, FL, for approximately $13.5 million before working capital adjustments. The assets include MRI’s 232 franchise offices in the U.S. and internationally,

Executive Recruiters Upping Their Efforts to Help Organizations Achieve Diversity Goals

Anyone who works in executive search right now has seen, and will continue to see, a push for more lists of diverse candidates for open roles. “We are also seeing organizations start to mandate diversity numbers as a benchmark for DEI success, and seeing an influx of diverse candidates at the executive level as a

Spotlight: Presenting a Diverse Slate of Candidates

Blue Rock Search is a 100 percent minority/female-owned executive search firm. As a member of the SRA Network, the firm is also a Hunt Scanlon HR/Diversity Recruiting Power 65 recruiter. After a 25-year career in corporate human resources and HR executive search, Ruben Moreno and his two partners co-founded Blue Rock Search based on a

Spotlight: The Importance of Having a Diverse Workforce

Founded in 1998 by Tom and Paula Christopher (former HR executives with GE, Pepsi, Progressive Insurance, and Citigroup), The Christopher Group is a leading boutique HR executive search and staffing solutions firms. The firm is staffed by former HR professionals and trained search practitioners who use proprietary, scientific, and industry-leading systems, tools, and processes. The

The Importance of Diversity and Inclusion In the Workplace

Having a culture that supports DEI programs is integral to successful teams and better business performance, says a new report from Hanold Associates HR & Diversity Executive. We sat down with Val Lopez and Pamela Culpepper, who are key leaders in the firm’s DEI efforts, to discuss diversity and inclusion. Here is an excerpt. Diversity

Seeking Gender and Racial Equity

The past two years have seen significant progress in raising awareness and opening a national dialogue around racism and diversity, equity, and inclusion. In a recent study, executive recruitment firm Jensen Partners sought to better understand where DEI stands within the search industry, tracking 207 black front office distribution professional hires from Jan. 1, 2019